Abia State: We're not embarking on another verification for Public and Civil Servants - Commissioner for Information, Prince Okey Kanu

Abia state government has clarified that it is not embarking on another verification exercise for public and civil servants in the state as ...

Abia state government has clarified that it is not embarking on another verification exercise for public and civil servants in the state as alleged by the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in the state.

The government says that what is rather going on in the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) as well as the 17 Local Government Areas is the upload of workers' credentials online. 

The Commissioner for Information and Culture, Prince Okey Kanu disclosed this while briefing the press after this week's Executive Council meeting presided over by Governor Alex Otti, OFR. According to the Commissioner, the NLC had released a communique to the effect that workers should not be part of any verification exercise.

" Government is not embarking on any verification rather what is going on is that workers were asked to upload their credentials online. And like they say, there is always no smoke without fire; the government had planned to make certain appointments from within the civil service and when the  files of some senior civil servants were brought forward, it was found out that there were no papers (necessary documents) in those files .There were  questions as regards the credentials with which  these  civil servants were working with. On what basis were they employed? On what basis have they been promoted over the years? Questions and more questions.

"It got to the point that the state government decided on a -show- your- credentials exercise'but just to make it easy for workers so that nobody congregates together to do all that, the government directed that the  upload of the credentials be carried out online.

" So, that's not a verification exercise but suffice it to say that asking workers not to embark on that exercise without interfacing and finding out what exactly is the issue is not fair to the state government.

"Recall too that over the weekend the NULGE Secretary issued a letter to that effect as well. So we are using this opportunity to disabuse the minds of our civil servants and members of the public who may have been misled by the false alarm and wrong narrative by the Abia state chapter of the NLC," explained Prince Kanu.

The Commissioner equally described as unfair to the Abia state government, the attitude of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners,  NUP,  who, over the weekend, issued a statement to the effect that their executives  did not represent them well during the discussions and subsequent agreement that led to the payment of their outstanding pensions in the state. 

Prince Okey Kanu noted that it is funny that the complaint was coming after the pensioners  had received bank credit alerts of their pensions. 

"They embarked on a unilateral action and decided to write a public letter to the government without  first seeking for clarifications from  the government officials concerned. That's  not the right way to go about it;  not with a government  that means well for workers. A government that has  paid  Abia pensioners their outstanding pensions with some dating back to 2014 . A government  that promised to pay pensioners  their full monthly pensions going forward and has fulfilled  that promise  in the month of April and is poised to sustain the payments going forward. 

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